Born in Canton, Ohio, the author is a 1957 graduate of Canton McKinley High School. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in history from Kent State University (1961) and a  MSSW in social work from the University of Tennessee ( 1976). She is also a graduate of the Department of Defense Race Relations & Equal Opportunity School (1976), the U.S. Army Command & Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (1980) and numerous other military schools.

Her interest in the military and veterans spans four decades. She served more than twenty-one years in the United States Army and nineteen years with the Department of Veterans Affairs.  She was a clinical social worker in the Mental Health & Behavioral Science Unit at the VA Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee and the Associate Chief of Social Work at the VA Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a graduate of the VA Social Work Administrative Leadership Course and holds an Independent License in Social Work  from  the State of Ohio and a Certified License in Social Work from the State of Tennessee.

She has had an intense interest in military history since the early days of her military career. For the past nine years, her focus has been exclusively 18th and 19th century history with special emphasis on the Civil War.

In concert with her professional education and experience as well as a very labor intensive five-year genealogical research project, she is particularly interested in the “human side” of the Civil War.

The author is retired from the U.S. Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs. She makes her home in Rainbow City, Alabama and Fairfield, Ohio.

Soldiers’ Monumnet Massillon Cemetery Association Massillon, Ohio Soldiers’ Monumnet Massillon Cemetery Association Massillon, Ohio